It's my holiday and I'll cry if I want to

IT's nearly been a fortnight since I arrived home from my week's ski holiday in France. I use the term 'ski holiday' quite loosely, considering I ended up feeling like I'd just completed an expensive week-long course on Nursing One's Sick Partner While Abroad, Level One. This was meant to be our 'last hurrah holiday' for awhile as the need to start saving was becoming more apparant every Saturday night as the National Lottery consistently refuses to match my numbers. And so we headed off to Les Arcs in France, looking forward to the break, hitting the slopes and the free red wine.

That didn't work out unfortunately. Himself woke up on our very first day with tonsilitis and a bacterial infection which basically robbed him of his voice for the next 6 days, left him bedridden with fever, sweats, no appetite and wallowing in justified self pity and martyrdom. Not bothered to go ski alone, I spent most of the week dispensing medecines, mopping brow (no joke), making sympathetic noises, reading a Marie Claire inside and out that I had bought for 10 euro after having finished the only two books I had brought with me after a day and a half, and then watching a horrific French reality show based on The Hills called Hollywood Girls while Himself snored, shivered and sweated his way through the week next to me. Romantic it was not but then true love is tested by the hard times, not the good ones I guess. If it was tough for me to see the first week I'd got off since I transferred jobs disintegrate before my very eyes, I know it was worse for ski-mad Himself to be looking out at that wonderful snow-covered mountain and not being able to move out of bed. Late in the week, he gradually started feeling better and we watched Hollywood Girls together, not understanding a word they were saying and so instead, making it up as we went along. Do not judge us. It had been a long week.

Himself is absolutely fine now, his voice is back, the fever's gone, but the holiday's over. It could've been worse I know, but  it also could've been better. I did learn a few things though. No use in having free wine if there's no one to share it with. I  give into temptation too easily - when the going got tough, I did stick by Himself, but I did NOT stick by my Lenten vow of no chocolate or cake, if  the generous helpings of chocolate torte and baked Alaska I wolfed down were anything to go by. I do think God will probably let that one go though thanks to my stint as Florence Nightengale. I also learnt that one should always bring more than two books on holiday, knowing more words in French than 'bonjour' can never fail to come in handy, life without internet and TV shows I can understand is very boring and last but not least, a career in nursing is definately not for me.